2018 Notification and Investigation of Major Incidents (NIMI) Reports by Bus Operator

Caroline Pidgeon: Please show the total number of NIMI Reports submitted by bus operators in 2018 broken down by each bus operator.

The Mayor: 144 Notification and Investigation of Major Incidents (NIMIS) were reported by bus operators to Transport for London in 2018. The breakdown of how many NIMIs were reported by each bus operator can be found in the table below.
The NIMI procedure is a systematic approach to identifying and sharing lessons from the most serious incidents on the bus network. Bus operators also have their own procedures for investigating incidents which do not fall under the NIMI process, and these are reviewed by TfL as part of the Bus Assurance Programme whereby TfL visits every bus operator quarterly to review their safety management systems. TfL also monitors all reported collisions, injuries and deaths on the bus network, and publishes a wide range of safety data on its website.
Bus operators in London operate across a range of routes, providing significantly different driving environments and safety risks which affect the number of NIMIs.

Culture Budget

Andrew Boff: What is the total culture budget for the 2019/20 year?

The Mayor: London’s creative economy generates £52 billion per year and provides 1 in 6 jobs, delivering important social and economic impactfor Londoners. For example, investment in my creative industries portfolio in 2018/19 generated trade income of nearly £700m. Since 2016, I have supported over 11 million visits to cultural events and activities, ensuring Londoners from all backgrounds have access to culture.
The Culture and Creative Industries Unit budget for the financial year 2019/2020 is £9.8 million (excluding the Museum of London). I have also allocated £12.1 million to the Museum of London for 2019/2020, this includes the annual grant under the Museum of London Act and a contribution of £4 million towards investment in the New Museum of London.

Vulnerable energy customers

Leonie Cooper: Did you respond to Ofgem’s consultation on their Consumer Vulnerability Strategy? How is London protecting vulnerable energy customers?

The Mayor: Yes. A response was sent to the consultation in August 2019. In it,my officers highlighted identification of vulnerability, debt, self-disconnection and the need for integration of approaches to energy and water vulnerability as key challenges.
Through my Warmer Homes grant scheme and advice service, I am working with hundreds of partners across London to identify vulnerable Londoners, ensuring that they are added to energy and water companies’ Priority Services Registers and enrolled for the Warm Home Discount. This will give them much-needed debt and disconnection advice, advice on saving energy and offers on water bill discounts and water saving devices.
The response can be found here - https://www.london.gov.uk/about-us/mayor-london/public-affairs/uk-government-relations

GLA Agencies

Andrew Boff: How much money has GLA spent on PR/Public Affairs/Marketing/Digital/Communications/External Affairs agencies over the past 5 years, broken down by year? Please also provide details of what this money was used for and which agencies were/are used.

The Mayor: The GLA has a responsibility to keep Londoners informed and engaged in our work, including to inform them of services that are available to them and policies that may impact them.
Since its creation in 2000, the GLA has used marketing and external affairs agencies to support the planning and delivery of some important communications campaigns. We share TFL’s procurement framework so that we are able to select specialist agencies to meet different needs from an approved roster.
Over the last five years, the GLA has continued to use agencies to deliver high-impact communications, providing expertise and skills that we do not have within our in-house teams.
For example:
Since 2008, the GLA has worked with Wavemaker (previously MEC) as our appointed media planning and buying agency. Over the last five years, our most significant marketing and communications spend has always have been with Wavemaker, which you can see broken down by financial year in the table below.
2014-15
2015-16
2016-17
2017-18
2018-19
Wavemaker (formerly known as MEC)
725,000
393,000
619,000
409,000
646,000
Unfortunately, we are not able to give you the full list of marketing, digital, communications and external affairs agencies that have been used over the past 5 years as you requested. Prior to the introduction of the Centralised Marketing Budget in 2017/18, communications budgets and responsibility for managing agency contracts sat with each individual policy teams rather than with the External Relations unit. As such, this information is distributed across teams and was not collected centrally.
The GLA maintains a centralised contracts register, but to filter this for the types of suppliers you are interested in would take hundreds of hours of GLA staff time.
Likewise, there is not a way to comprehensively extract spend on all the types of external agencies that you have requested from our financial systems without spending hundreds of hours of staff time filtering through it.